Is steel really real?

[legrandefromage]

The Manitous were built using the wrong materials and hardening processes, nothing more. With cannondale, excessive butting and tube thicknesses made them coke can thin in places. Wrong butting sends stress into the wrong parts of a frame.

Then theres the marketing of mtb's, thick tubing must mean its really strong right, so I'll take a lightweight XC frame off big drops etc etc etc. Big forks acting as big levers on the headtubes. Frames fail for all manner of reasons beyond poor design and implementation.

And the on-one. Its cheap cheerful and has loads of mounts but I'd never have one again at least not unless it was cheap - I could at least give it another go to see if it was as bad as I remember

 

[captaincosmic]

Re:

My BSA 20" wheel shopping bike was great around the pines and even came with a basket ,dynamo lights a back pedal brake, mudguards and most importantly a bell to warn all the carbon full sus riders to get out of my way. As I passed them I could see from the look on their faces that they weren't enjoying the carbon ride ,maybe a £30 steel shopper is worth a punt...oh and the sturmey three speed had all the ratios I needed.

 

[CTK]

Re:

I'd save your cash and get a 29er when the time comes. Big wheels will make a difference with the mileage you are doing. And also comfort wise etc.

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Why do TDF riders no longer wear wool jerseys, eat jam sandwiches and ride steel bikes with 10 gears when the streets of France haven't changed for as long as the competition has existed?

At risk of pulling a remark out of its proper context, the early Tours de France were run on unpaved mountain roads and cobbled streets, and stages in the early decades of the race were frequently 400km or more. The total length of the race has dropped as well, from 4500-5000km in the interwar years to 3500km in the modern era.

The last twenty years have seen steel frames give way to aluminium and carbon, quill stems and square bottom brackets vanish from the race, and cassettes change from 8 to 11 speeds with little overall change in the average speed of the race.

That's not to say that bike technology has had no effect on speed, but the course has also changed beyond recognition, and the roads of France are, with few exceptions, flatter, straighter, and smoother now than then.

 

[mattr]

The Manitous were built using the wrong materials and hardening processes, nothing more. With cannondale, excessive butting and tube thicknesses made them coke can thin in places. Wrong butting sends stress into the wrong parts of a frame.

Which is exactly why work hardening and cracking was a problem. Just welding/manipulating a load of tubes together, with only an eye on weight, in a material which has a finite fatigue life, is a bad idea.

 

[gradeAfailure]

The last twenty years have seen steel frames give way to aluminium and carbon, quill stems and square bottom brackets vanish from the race, and cassettes change from 8 to 11 speeds with little overall change in the average speed of the race.

That's not to say that bike technology has had no effect on speed, but the course has also changed beyond recognition, and the roads of France are, with few exceptions, flatter, straighter, and smoother now than then.

Just as a point of note - "little overall change in the average speed of the race" is not insignificant.

Mid-90's high point: 39Kph
Mid-00's high point (before they really cracked down on the drugs ): 42Kph

All other variables being equal - drug use (!), elevation gain, wind speed, etc - to go from a 39 to a 42Kph average speed requires around a 25% increase in power output. That's a hell of a lot, so any gains that can be made through technological improvement, however marginal they may seem, have a big effect.

Back to the OP though, as I fear we are some way off-topic! Given what I've read about the Inbred, I think you'd be disappointed after the Coyote. If you're looking for a cheap modern steel frame, maybe something like the last of the sliding droput Voodoo steel frames (I have a Wanga, it's lovely), or a Rock Lobster 853 if you can find one?

 

[captaincosmic]

Re:

A 29'er is the way to go but you won't get anything decent for £100
I bought a Genesis High Altitude in the summer for £500 and it has opened my eyes I now keep my retro steeds for high days and throw the Genesis at everything which it takes with ease.
It's a steel hard tail with discs and tubeless 29" wheels and bars twice as wide as those on my Rocky Mountains.
It is fun to ride and makes much more of the effort you put in. The guys I ride with have with one exception switched to big wheels now and when I did in the summer my reaction was that it was so easy to beat along at a cracking pace.

 

[The History Man]

Charge Cooker hasn't been mentioned. As above with SRAM nonsense 3x10. Love it.

 

[one-eyed_jim]

Just as a point of note - "little overall change in the average speed of the race" is not insignificant.

[snip]

All other variables being equal - drug use (!), elevation gain, wind speed, etc - to go from a 39 to a 42Kph average speed requires around a 25% increase in power output. That's a hell of a lot, so any gains that can be made through technological improvement, however marginal they may seem, have a big effect.

To look at it another way, variations in effective power output of that magnitude can in no way be accounted for by small improvements in bike technology from one year to the next. And taking the worst excesses of the Armstrong years with a healthy dose of scepticism, the difference between Indurain's winning speed in 1995 (39.2km/h) and Froome's in 2015 (39.6km/h) is small enough to be lost in the noise.

Of course it's the nature of competition that small technical improvements can translate to big differences in placings, and Froome's bike is almost certainly more efficient than Indurain's. Outside of competition, I'm not at all convinced that such differences are significant. Then again, that's one reason I ride old bikes.

 

[CTK]

Yes but between Indurain and Froome 's era road bikes haven't changed that much-MTBs in the same time period have changed loads.

That is not to say these changes will be beneficial to OP. If OP is riding mostly on road or towpaths then my advice would be to keep the Coyote.

My aluminum road bike (carbon forks) rides better than any steel frame I've had. And it feels more 'alive'